Tag: sun

To the horror of global warming alarmists, the climate refuses to warm.

9:55 pm

To the horror of global warming alarmists, the climate refuses to warm.

For those who are regular readers here at Behind the Black, none of the data described by Peter Ferrara in this article will be a surprise. I have been reporting these facts for years. However, the article provides a nice outline of what we know, and includes this sentence near the end that sums up the true problem we face:

Has there ever in history been such an almighty disconnect between observable reality and the delusions of a political class that is quite impervious to any rational discussion?

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The Sun shows a bit of life

8:24 am

It is that time again, buckos! Yesterday NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of April 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I have posted this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

For the second month in a row the Sun’s sunspot output increased. The result is that April 2013 saw the most sunspot activity in more than a year, since December 2011.

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Three years of Solar Dynamics Observatory images of the Sun — in three minutes.

2:17 pm

Three years of Solar Dynamics Observatory images of the Sun — in three minutes.

I’ve posted the video below the fold. It’s quite cool.

Note that these images cover the period when the Sun was ramping up to what was hoped to be a strong solar maximum, when SDO was being designed and built. And though the Sun does appear to be active in these images, it is actually far less active than it has been for solar maximums going back at least a century.

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The weak solar maximum continues

10:27 am

Late last night NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of March 2013. As I have done every month for the past three years, I am posting this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

While the Sun’s output of sunspots increased in March, it did not do so with much vigor, with the numbers still far below all predictions while also showing an overall decline since a single strong peak in October 2011.

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We don’t need no solar maximum

3:37 pm

It is that time again! Today, March 4, NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of February 2013. As I do every month, I am posting this latest graph, with annotations to give it context, below the fold.

Once again, the Sun has shown a complete inability to produce sunspots, at the very moment it had been predicted to be rising towards its maximum in the sunspot cycle. The numbers in February plunged from the tepid rise we saw in January to below the crash we saw in December. Right now, when the Sun is supposed to peaking, it is instead producing sunspots in numbers as low as seen in 2011, at the very end of the last solar minimum.
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The weak solar maximum continues

3:30 pm

On February 4, NOAA released its monthly update of the Sun’s sunspot cycle, covering the period of January 2013. As I do every month, I have posted the latest graph, with annotation, below the fold.

Not surprisingly, the sunspot numbers in January showed a recovery and rise from the steep plunge in December. What is surprising, however, is that the rise is not very much, barely bringing the sunspot number for the month back to the weak numbers we’ve seen for most of 2012.
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A new National Research Council report honestly admits the possibility that the Sun might be an important factor in climate change.

10:01 pm

Pigs fly! A new National Research Council report honestly admits the possibility that the Sun might be an important factor in climate change.

The article, from NASA, itself is a remarkably fair assessment of the field’s state of knowledge (which in truth is quite spotty since we really do not yet understand what is going on with the climate). This, as far as I can remember, is the first time in years, since the early 1990s before the global warming advocates took over the climate field and shut down debate, that an official article from a government organization like NASA has been so open about these issues and not toed the politically correct line that “fossil fuels and carbon dioxide are causing global warming and don’t you dare say anything different!”

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The twelve best solar events in 2012

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Below is a compilation of the twelve most spectacular solar flares of 2012, in chronological order. A detailed explanation of each can be found here.

Though the Sun continues to go through the weakest sunspot maximums in more than a hundred years, we now have some very sophisticated instruments in space that are able to observe whatever happens. And the Sun is still a raging inferno of billions of hydrogen bombs, all going off at once and continuously. Even during a weak minimum it still is more powerful than we can imagine. Consider: The Earth would be nothing mores than a small dot in each of these flares.

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The solar scientists change their prediction again

12:39 pm

Today, with little fanfare, the solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center adjusted slightly downward their prediction for the upcoming solar maximum, from a sunspot number of 73 down to 72. This was the fourth month in a row that they have revised their prediction.

The Marshall scientists do not archive their predictions, which I suspect is a convenient way of preventing people from noticing how much they change them. I however like to archive these revisions. Below is a full list of their changes during the past two years:
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Kepler reveals our Sun might be more variable than we imagine

5:13 pm

More exoplanet news: The problems of Kepler.

The article outlines the status — both good and bad — of Kepler in its hunt for Earthlike exoplanets.

I have already reported on Kepler’s failed reaction wheel. It no longer has a backup and needs every reaction wheel it has to keep it pointed in so precise a manner. Thus, the loss of one more wheel will shut the telescope down.

However, I had not been aware that the scientists now need more than twice as much time, eight years instead of three, to do their work, because they have discovered that sunlike stars are far more variable than expected. To quote the article,
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The solar maximum has already occurred in the Sun’s northern hemisphere, according to new observations.

9:16 am

The solar maximum has already occurred in the Sun’s northern hemisphere, according to one scientist’s research.

Moreover, the data also suggests that the maximum in the Sun’s southern hemisphere will not occur until early in 2014. This asymmetry between the hemispheres also suggests the strong possibility of a Grand Minimum to follow.

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A delayed but higher prediction for the solar maximum?

1:33 pm

The uncertainty of science: The solar scientists at the Marshall Spaceflight Center today revised upward their prediction for the upcoming peak of the solar maximum, from a sunspot number of 60 to 76, while simultaneously delaying the arrival of their predicted peak from the spring to the fall of 2013.

Since Marshall does not archive its predictions, I am required to keep track of the revisions they make and note them here. Previously I had outlined the changes in this prediction since January 2011. Here is an updated listing:
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The Sun continues to fizzle

9:56 am

Yesterday NOAA posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. You can see this latest graph, covering the month of July, below the fold.

As we have seen now for almost four years, the Sun continues to under-perform the predictions of solar scientists when it comes to the number of sunspots it is producing. In fact, that the sunspot number did not rise in July is surprising, as July had appeared to be a very active month for sunspots, with some of the strongest solar flares and coronal mass ejections seen in years. Instead, the number declined ever so slightly.
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The Sun has emitted a big flare, and a coronal mass ejection from this is expected to hit the Earth on Saturday.

4:30 pm

Chicken Little report: The Sun has emitted a big flare, and a coronal mass ejection from this is expected to hit the Earth on Saturday.

There will be some gnashing of teeth about this flare, but in truth, this sentence says it all:

The radiation storm, in progress, ranks “S1” on NOAA space weather scales, which means it poses no serious threat to satellites or astronauts.

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Scientists have found that a solar Grand Minimum 2800 years ago might have caused a period of cooling in Europe

7:18 am

Scientists have found that a solar Grand Minimum 2800 years ago might have caused a period of cooling in Europe.

The evidence for this link is at this moment slim, based upon a single data point from a lake in Germany. Nonetheless, it is further evidence that the Sun’s production of sunspots is more important to global climate than climate scientists had previously believed.

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An up and down Sun, for real this time

2:19 pm

Though I am a bit late in covering this story (due to moving, unpacking, Passover, and an unexpected visit to the dentist), NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center on April 9 released its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. The most recent graph is below the fold.

In order to understand the context of this new graph, however, it is necessary to make a correction and clarification.
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